Artist crafts pinhole cameras into 'altars,' with materials such as a baby's heart

Wayne Belger poses with Yama Camera, which is made from a human skull and is one of the many pinhole camera creations on display in his exhibit "Wayne Martin Belger: A Collection of Souls from the Borderland" at Varnish Fine Art in San Francisco, CA. Each of the cameras Belger builds is devoted to the subject of their photographs. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

Wayne Belger poses with Yama Camera, which is made from a human skull and is one of the many pinhole camera creations on display in his exhibit "Wayne Martin Belger: A Collection of Souls from the Borderland" ... more

Photo: Laura Morton

Photo: Laura Morton

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Wayne Belger poses with Yama Camera, which is made from a human skull and is one of the many pinhole camera creations on display in his exhibit "Wayne Martin Belger: A Collection of Souls from the Borderland" at Varnish Fine Art in San Francisco, CA. Each of the cameras Belger builds is devoted to the subject of their photographs. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

Wayne Belger poses with Yama Camera, which is made from a human skull and is one of the many pinhole camera creations on display in his exhibit "Wayne Martin Belger: A Collection of Souls from the Borderland" ... more

Photo: Laura Morton

Artist crafts pinhole cameras into 'altars,' with materials such as a baby's heart

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To step into Varnish, the South of Market fine art gallery, anytime between now and Nov. 4 is to walk into a world that straddles art, technology and spirituality. Its latest show, "Wayne Martin Belger: A Collection of Souls From the Borderland," is a display of the artist's pinhole cameras and photography.

The cameras are working machines that capture images through a tiny hole instead of a lens. They are also sculptures forged out of aircraft-quality aluminum with parts crafted from titanium, steel or copper and embedded with jewels, text and all sorts of talismans -- from a baby's preserved heart to a tiny figure of the Hindu god Rama -- that underline their true function.

"All the cameras are basically altars," Belger says.

Nine of the 13 cameras that the 42-year-old Pasadena native has created since he made his first in 1997 are on view and accompanied by prints made with each machine. Each camera was created with a specific subject in mind. A tiny baby's heart, recovered from the garage where it had been sitting since an anatomy lab closed in the 1940s, inspired Belger to create the "Heart" camera, which he uses to photograph pregnant women.

That may sound macabre until Belger talks about his initial reaction upon encountering the heart and the inspiration behind the camera's specific use.

"A gallery owner called me one day and said, 'Wayne, I have something weird for you,' and it was this heart," he says. "It really kind of hit me because I was born a twin, and my twin died at birth. It was an interesting relationship all of the sudden that I had with this heart, and my thinking behind it was, 'What makes this heart and my brother's heart different from other hearts is that they never really got to know a mother, never felt the arms or nourishment of a mother.' "

Belger has held a variety of jobs, including manicurist, treasure hunter and mascot for a pair of National Hockey League teams, but it is art that has sustained him through most of his life, and that started with the altars he began constructing out of dirt clods when he was 7.

"My art training came from the Catholic Church, sitting alone in my backyard," he laughs. "Growing up -- we were Catholic -- I remember going to church where it was all in Latin and they're doing magical things with wine and incense. It had a bit of an impact.

"In the backyard was this little tunnel made out of bushes, and I made like this whole pantheon of gods and goddesses that were carved out of dirt clods, pretty ornate stuff," he says.

A quarter-century later, automotive photographer Brian Booth showed Belger a pinhole camera he had made of foam-core board. The device was shaky, and Belger knew he could improve on it, so he offered to build one. It was the first one he fashioned out of aircraft aluminum and designed as a functional work of art.

"I gave it to him and he was just amazed by the camera and how well it worked, but also he didn't expect these keyholes inside with insects crawling out and a Pablo Neruda poem embossed in the aluminum going around the camera," he says.

That first machine proved to be a revelation, Belger says. "I felt very connected to being able to create an image out of just pure light in a pinhole."

The subsequent cameras have drawn on a variety of inspirations. A close friend's disclosure that he was HIV-positive led to the creation of the "HIV Camera," a complex mechanism with more than 130 parts, including a pump that pushes blood taken from Belger's subjects from one side of the camera to the other between sheets of glass, creating a red filter. The "Deer Camera" was inspired by his visit to Tucson's International Wildlife Museum after someone suggested that his 2-year-old daughter would love it. Thinking he was taking her to a place like Walnut Creek's Lindsay Wildlife Museum, where the animals are alive, Belger was horrified to discover a space filled with hundreds of stuffed, dead animals.

"I created (the camera), because I was thinking, 'Wow, it would be interesting to be an alien, looking down at all these beings, except this one group of beings is slaughtering all the others, taking off their heads and putting them on a wall. It's kind of odd. Why isn't it odd to us?' " he says. "All the images have the antlers; they're actually framed by the antlers."

Belger designs the cameras in his head -- there are no blueprints or written plans -- and he shapes his parts on a milling machine. "I'm turning cranks and counting cranks, and I'll go down to a thousandth of an inch, as far as my cuts," he says. "It has to be able to keep the light out."

Collectors own many of the cameras, but it is with the provision that he can take back the equipment for gallery or museum shows or for use in his photography projects. The second print from each series of no more than 18 photos goes to the camera owner.

The first print he reserves for his daughter. "She has a huge collection. Hopefully, someday, they'll be her retirement," he laughs.